yeah, the picture doesn’t capture the complete frenzy on friday morning, but it was my first time to get up at 4:45 am to shop. went to tyson’s to check out the apple store (hoping for some surprise goodies), but alas, they did not open until 8. so we headed over to hecht’s — about 6:30 am is when the crowd started to build and we had to wait 35 minutes in line to actually by the 3 things we found. all in good spirits.

one suggestion to at least the non-best buys/targets/walmarts: part of the spirit of the day after thanksgiving is to kick-off the beginning of the holiday season — why not make the event more festive? as our energy was waning, a cup of hot cocoa would have been nice, some cookies, carollers through the store. i would have appreciated at some point a warm feeling of the holiday spirit vs. the shopping glutton that we’ve succumb to.

i may do it again, just for the fun of seeing so many ppl out, but believe me, i can wait a few days to buy season 2 of arrested development and pay the extra $10.

(p.s. kudos to my friend that had to work a normal day after that. we dropped her at the metro at 9 — i have no idea how she could sit at her desk all day after being up 3 hrs early!)

Like other major transit systems, WMATA sells a line of merchandise. The online store includes, maps, mugs, trinkets, and the “Metro at 25″ coffee table book, among other things. Also available are black t-shirts from a few stations; Archives – Navy Memorial, College Park – U of MD, Metro Center, Pentagon, Shaw – Howard U, Smithsonian, Union Station. Customizable t-shirts, mugs, and mousepads are available for all stations, but the t-shirts are white instead of solid black.

While NYC Subway t-shirts have their fans (I have seen people wearing them in at least three cities not named New York), I have yet to see anyone with a Metro one. I wonder why this is — lack of history/cachet of WMATA? Nobody knows that you can buy an Medical Center t-shirt? No stands in stations (a la Boston’s T) or elsewhere, like museum gift shops? You can’t get the coveted Medical Center t-shirt in black?

Would get your neighborhood’s Metro station t-shirt?

Dear XM Satellite Radio,

Thanks so much for adding five holiday music channels to your dial for the holiday season! Though, yes, you did displace Wayan’s favorite channel, I’m rather fond of Christmas music, from the twang of Nashville on 105 to the Novelty stuff on 107 and the Classics on 104. I know Wayan needs to get his groove on, but I really love hearing more seasonal music this year.

So thanks for making with the carols, XM! And better yet, thanks for making most of your music streams available online for subscribers, I have to say, what a kickass feature this is!

Tom Bridge,
Listener and Subscriber since July

Not only was

Dear XM Satellite Radio,

What are you all thinking? What are you doing? And what is going on in your NY Avenue headquarters that makes you change your play list like this?

I miss my Ngoma Channal 104, I really do. See when I wanna get my groove on, really set the mood, its all Ngoma all the time. Better than dance, more classy that Sade and less cheesy than Vandross, Ngoma was the deep African beat that made the ladies swoon. Now its gone to XM Online only, and banished from my love shack – like I want the hum of a laptop to break up my groove.

And speaking of breaking a groove, at work it

Bill Simmons, known to all men as the funniest sports columnist in the world, is coming back to DC for a second signing of his new book Now I Can Die In Peace. He’ll be back at the ESPN Zone on December 6th at 5pm. If you weren’t there the first time, be sure to come early, because the Sports Guy is one seriously popular dude. He ended up having to take a list of people’s names last time and send their autographed books back to the Barnes & Noble next door. Seriously, if you have a penis, you need to be there.

Armed robbers forced their way into a home in Fair Oaks that was hosting a Texas Hold ‘Em tournament.

The robbers evidently had access to the invitation to the game, and made off with several thousand dollars.

Judging by the Virginians I know who carry their sidearm while hosting poker tournaments in their home, it seems not very bright to attempt such a robbery in Fairfax instead of the District…

After downing all those Belgian beers at Busboys and drowning in Gen X irony, I headed over to meet my husband for the next course in DC nightlife Thanksgiving Eve. The snow had just started to fall and he was standing in front of Stetson?s, peering in forlornly. ?It?s closed,? he sighed, but luckily just for renovations. We could see a fresh coat of paint and what looked like a new, ornate wooden bar, perhaps? The last time I was there a fight broke out and the bartender launched himself over the bar to stop it. Stetson?s is a classic.

We decided to walk up to Adams Morgan for dinner, and picked upstairs at The Reef. With the saltwater fish tanks glowing blue and the tall windows providing a perfect view of snow-swept 18th street, we lingered over bison burgers and yet more Belgian ale.

Then it was on to Asylum, where they were having Pumpkin Pie Wrestling. This was moderately intriguing (as voyeurs only, though I was getting nicely tipsy, who knows?) until we discovered it was a $15 cover. So it was downstairs for a crowded nightcap instead. As we were leaving, a guy was lurching around outside in the cold with no jacket. He had that look of drunkenness and wounded pride mixed with a little indignation. ?These people are crazy here,? he kept saying, wobbling in the doorway as a friend tried to hold him up. At first we thought he was covered in vomit. But it was just pumpkin puree.

I wasn?t sure what to expect from Busboys and Poets, the new bookstore/coffeeshop/bar/performance space at 14th and V Streets. I?d heard varied reports labeling it either a symbol of gentrification or a symbol of defiance, either a buppie/yuppie hangout or IMF protesters ground zero. This hearsay incongruity struck me as rather intriguing, so a friend and I headed over Wednesday for happy hour to check it out.

I?m happy to say Busboys and Poets can?t be locked down into any slot. Its aim is to be inclusive. Buy a book, hang out with some coffee, drinks with friends, dinner, hear some poetry ? it?s aim is to be your Third Space, not the Next Hot Space. And the name? Apparently Langston Hughes once worked as a busboy in DC at the Wardman Park Hotel?

The layout, on the ground floor of one of the new condominiums, is large and open ? ambitiously able to hold about 300 people, with a performance space/private room in the back where they hold special events like monthly poetry open mics. The front room is eclectically furnished with tables, chairs, and very comfortable couches, rather like a more upscale Chi-Cha Lounge. There?s an expansive bar that looked very inviting if by chance the room is full. I didn?t get a chance to check out the political bookstore integrated in the front, but it was always humming with patrons browsing through books, a good sign. The lights were bright when we entered, highlighting the airiness of the space, but dimmed to create a cosier feel later on. The crowd also slowly changed from coffee sipping with laptops to Belgian beer drinking ? even with the very high ceilings the sound level stayed at a gentle buzz. I wondered how it would get later on in the night. We noticed right away that it was truly multicultural scene ? a rare thing in DC where nightlife can still be so segregated. There was a strong effort to keep the mood very low-key – our server would sit down on the couch opposite us and chat about the different merits of different ales. Somehow it felt genuine, not forced. I could see returning some rainy afternoon to check out their chai tea ? ?not a fake powdered chai latte like some places,? he winked, ?real chai.?

It all made for a congenial yet apropos atmosphere to discuss Anne Hull?s recent two-article series on the ?boom times? changing our neighborhood. For two hours or so we hung out, listening to chill nu-jazz, curled on a red velvet couch nursing our Deleriums, chatting about property values and housing bubbles and the absurd probability of a sushi bar on 14th in 2006.

And then, as we are Gen X, discussing the ridiculous irony of what we were talking about, our hysterical hipster backlash against yuppification compared with our complicity, the poignant lunacy of being thirtysomethings and having no idea how we went from poor students to responsible adults in the blink of an eye. I can’t help laughing at myself for even writing this…

Roughly 25% of all purchases by the District government this year were unauthorized or part of no-bid contracts. $425M out of $2.5B. This is my favorite part of the article:

“We screwed up,” said Anthony F. Pompa, head of accounting for Chief Financial Officer Natwar M. Gandhi, when he was shown hundreds of millions of dollars in unauthorized checks.

Yeah. Screwed up. $425M. Screwed up. People ought to lose their jobs over this sort of thing. Will they? Not unless we hold their feet to the fire.

Now, while some of that is for services for which the District does not have contracts (why doesn’t it have contracts? Not really all that clear, is it? Sure am glad I might be forced to pay taxes to these guys.), and Natwar Gandhi’s quote makes it look awfully rosy:

“I will be damned if a child is without textbooks or an AIDS patient is without medicine just because some bureaucrat did not file the paperwork right.”

What’s really frustrating to me is the no-bid contracts situation. Apparently, so long as you publish your schedule of fees, bidding is not required. Never mind that this sort of thing increases costs, on average 39% for the nation. The big trick here is the “direct voucher”, which works like a signed blank check. Take that puppy to the bank and cash it, and the money’s yours, with little or no city accountability or oversight. DC’s apparently one of the few cities in the country that does it this way, where most others gave it up a while back due to the sort of problems that this can lead to.

The article is lengthy, but worth a read. While the District may be running a nice surplus this year, wouldn’t you rather have that money back so you can use it better?